If You Don't Draw First

The Land of Fire, the last frontier at the south of Equestria. All whom have traveled beyond this point never returned. It was forbidden by the law, but if an adventurer wanted to cross the line, no one would stop him. The last sign of civilization was a small village hidden in the cannon and a lighthouse on the top of a mountain; its light always in direction towards the badlands.

An old stallion walked along the path that lead to the town carrying on his back many sacks with seeds and vegetables; he was whistling a song to make lighter his way. From behind some rocks, the sound of creaks reached his ears making him stop.

“Who’s there?”

Silence. The pony said no more and started to walk again, but the creak became louder. He started to feel fear; a chill ran down his spine. He turned around to found a creature some meters away from him. The creature looked almost like another pony, but its muzzle was filled with sharp fangs and its eyes were of a light blue without trace of pupils. Its body seemed to be covered by many pieces of black shell like an insect. It also had a horn and wings like those of the wasps, its legs and tail filled with holes.

“What… what do you want?”

He said fearful, the creature smiled and rubbed its wings to make a sound similar to those of a cricket. In horror, the pony saw more creatures flying above him and staring at him like manticores ready to attack.

“We need food”.

The creature spoke with raspy voice. The pony let all the sacks on his back fell to the ground.

“Take them; it’s all that I have”.

“Oh no, we don’t want that... we will feed with your flesh”.

All the creatures surrounded him. There was no escape; the pony looked at all sides only to find those blue eyes staring back at him. He closed his eyes on the moment that one of the creatures lunged at him. There was a scream of pain and he opened his eyes to see the creature in the ground with a spear of crystal incrusted on his neck. The rest of the creatures screamed, almost like if they had felt the same pain of its brother.

“WHO DID IT? SHOW YOURSELF COWARD!”

One of them shouted. The answer came in the form of another crystal spear that pierced its back killing it instantly. The pony ran to take cover behind the rocks and in that moment he saw his savior. A tall pegasus landed in the middle of the creatures, her body was of grey color and seemed to shine with the sunlight, her mane of a deep black color with lines of purple moved with the air exposing a horn. The creatures backed away from her grabbing their heads and groaning in pain.

“What are you waiting for? Kill her”.

Said one of the changelings. They tried to use their magic, but the only thing they got was an intense pain. The alicorn used magic to summon a sword and plunged it into the body of the closest creature. There were five changelings more, all of them terrified by her. Two of them tried to attack her but she impaled them with crystals that came out from the ground.

“We need to go”.

The remaining changelings screamed and they opened their wings to fly. She saw this and started to run towards them determined to not let them go.

“ENOUGH!”

An authoritarian voice resounded in the place. The alicorn stopped her attack. Something else fell in front of the changelings in the middle of a cloud of dust stopping their flight. A claw passed through the dust grabbing one of the changelings and crushing it. Another was consumed by the flames that came from the cloud and the last one escaped barely alive.

The pony couldn’t believe what he saw after the dust dispersed. A dragon was standing in front of the alicorn who bowed her head almost like a filly ready to be punished. The dragon looked at her and opened his claw; she stepped on it and waited until she was staring into the eyes of the beast.

“What were you thinking?” He asked.

“They were about to kill him”.

“It doesn’t matter, is not your problem. You can’t just leave the colony like that and put your life in danger”.

“I wasn’t in danger at all, you saw it”.

“Shut up”.

She stayed in silence. “Let’s go back to the colony, your father will know about this”. He said and opened his wings to fly away into the badlands. The pony who saw the ordeal came out from the rocks still not believing what had just happened.

***---***---***

Booker stepped in front of Trixie. The timberwolves shortened the distance and when they decided to attack, he summoned a ball of lava with his hand and threw it in front of the beasts. Trixie saw how the ball hit the ground spreading into many little spots of fire that exploded in the moment that one of the wolves stepped over it and being consumed by the flames.

“MOVE!”

Said Booker pushing Trixie aside when one timberwolf jumped towards her. She saw how Booker’s hand turn into a tentacle made of water and how he used it to grab the wolf smashing it against the rocks. One more appeared behind him, Trixie stood up and charged her horn, a blast of blue energy hit the chest of the beast disintegrating it.

“Thanks”. He said.

Trixie nodded. A moment later she was at Booker’s side with her horn ready to attack. More wolves appeared on the clear, some of them still falling into the lava traps and others avoiding them.

“All right Mr. DeWitt, what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to use the vigors, so we need to finish with these things as soon as possible, what else can you do with that horn?”

“What you want me to do?”

“I have an idea, but I need you to hold them all on one place for it to work”.

“Got it”.

Trixie’s horn shone intensely, a ring of energy encased the timberwolves one against the other in the middle of the place.

“Hurry up!” She said with a groan.

Booker created another ball of lava and threw it into the mouth of one of the creatures, soon, the body of the wolf ignited and the flames spread to the others. All the beasts were consumed in minutes.

“That was great”.

Said Trixie in joy, Booker sat on the ground tired by the fight and by the use of his powers, Trixie looked at him.

“Hey, are you ok?”

“Yes, give me a moment, I just need to…”

He let out a groan of pain and grabbed his hand, all the powers started to manifest one by one in random ways, crystals that transformed into feathers and then into fire. The unicorn wanted to run away, but she couldn’t, after all, the creature in front of her had saved her life just moments ago, but she didn’t know how to help him.

A growl was heard behind them, Booker saw a bigger wolf appear in the clear and running towards him. He couldn’t do something to avoid the attack. The beast landed on him and pierced his shoulder with its fangs; Booker felt an intense pain and screamed. The beast started to shake its head from one side to another trying to rip the flesh, but a blast of energy crashed on its side sending it through the air. Trixie was now covering Booker with her body, the wolf stood up and howled before charge against the mare, Trixie shot once more and the beast disappeared in midair.

Booker placed his hand on the wounds caused by the wolf, they were deep and he was bleeding at a fast rate, without medical attention he would die for sure. Trixie came to him, she didn’t how to act and the fear was blocking all the ideas that passed through her head.

“Oh goodness, what do I do? What do I do?” She was panicking.

“Trixie, calm down and listen to me”, Booker groaned. “Damn this hurts”. He took a deep breath “Ok, can you try to cauterize the wounds?”

She nodded, her horn lit and she placed it over one of the wounds, but the flesh didn’t close, her magic had no effect on him.

“It doesn’t work”.

“Ok, it doesn’t matter, now we need to reach a town or something”.

“Yes, yes, the closest is Ponyville. C’mon, let help you”.

Trixie used her body to carry Booker back to the wagon. After she helped him to place a tourniquet on her arm, she sat on the front of the cart and used her magic to bring it life. The cart started to move through the woods and soon they found the way to Ponyville.

***---***---***

Ponyville at dusk was a beautiful place, there were ponies walking to their homes and others sat across the tables of the small coffee shops of the town. In the library, another day was at the end for the owner and her dragon friend.

“All right Twilight, that’s the last one”. Said Spike from the top of a ladder while placing a book on the shelf.

“Thanks Spike, now I finally have space for the new collection of Daring Do books that arrived this morning. But it's getting late, let's leave it for tomorrow”.

The lavender unicorn walked to small table and sat on a pillow. Then she grabbed a book with her magic to read it. Spike dropped from the ladder, he went to the chimney to start the fire.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Twi?”

“I’d love to”.

Spike smiled and went to the kitchen leaving the unicorn in total silence, until a desperate knock on the door startled her.

“What in the world? We’re close now, come back tomorrow”.

“SPARKLE, OPEN THE DOOR!” A voice came from the other side of the door, the voice sounded familiar to her.

Twilight walked to the door, and although she was a little worried, she opened it finding a familiar pony on the other side.

“Trixie?” She asked in surprise.

The blue coated unicorn had a worried look and grabbed Twilight by the shoulders.

“Quick, I need your help!”.

“Wait, what? What are you…”

“There’s no time for that, if we don’t do something he will die!”

“What are you talking about, who will die?”

Booker appeared behind Trixie catching Twilight’s attention. The moment she saw him, her mind went blank.

“Sparkle, react, he needs help!”

“Wha- wha- what is that thing?”

Booker rolled his eyes. “Oh please not again”. His clothes were soaked in blood now, his face had lost the color and his head hurt.

“Listen, I’ll tell you everything later, but now…”

Trixie couldn’t finish the sentence. Booker finally lost his forces and fell to the ground between the mares. He could hear Trixie calling his name, but her voice sounded far away. Then looked at Twilight who was in total shock.

“I knew I would regret it”.

He thought before losing consciousness.

*** Some hours later. ***

“He’s sleeping now, the wounds will heal in some days”.

Twilight said to Trixie who was sitting on the other side of the table.

“I didn’t know you knew first aids”.

“You can learn so much from the books”. The lavender unicorn served a cup of tea to Trixie. Her mood was like the one of a nurse now, totally different to the ball of nerves that she was just hours ago. “Now, where did you find… him?” She said like doubting the last part.

Trixie left the cup on the table. “To be honest, he found me. I was being attacked by timberwolves when he appeared. My first reaction was much the same like yours, but then, he protected me, and still I can’t believe what I saw him do”.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw him use magic; he created fire and water with his hands and used them to kill the beasts”.

There was shine on Twilight’s eyes, one that had to see with learning more from the creature sleeping on her basement.

“Did you saw his size? He sure is huge!” Spike said coming out from the basement carrying Booker’s holster. He took a quick look at the handle of the hand cannon and his curiosity reaching its peak in an instant. He was ready to take it out when Twilight called him.

“Spike, take a letter”.

He did so and waited for Twilight to began.

“Dear Princess Celestia, I need to inform you about a recent discovery. I found…”

“Hey!” Trixie said angrily.

“Oh yes… sorry”. Twilight´s cheeks turned pink. “I mean... one of your subjects found something on the Everfree Forest that…”

***---***---***

*** Canterlot Castle Library.***

“Tia, for the last time, what you say makes no sense, it was just a nightmare”.

Princess Luna took one hoof to her temple; her sister was looking for something inside the library.

“I knew you wouldn't believe it, but I assure you, it was a premonition, I have the feeling that something terrible will happen soon".

“You said the same when you dreamed about the eclipse; nothing happened, well, we had a great festival that day”.

“Luna, this is not a joke”.

The princess of the night rolled her eyes.

“Please, forget it; the only thing you will get from this is…” a green flame appeared on midair. “A letter?”

“It is from Twilight”.

Celestia opened the scroll and read the text; Luna saw her sister's face take a worried appearance.

“Tia? Is everything fine?”

Celestia looked at her. “We… We need to go to Ponyville”.